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Take equal parts cloudless skies, blue water and sandy beaches. Add 300,000 teenagers and young adults with countless nightlife options. Subtract parental supervision and you have the perfect mix for a carefree spring break vacation.

But when throwing caution to the wind involves alcohol and constant partying, it can lead to risky behaviour.

That’s why an outreach campaign at one spring break hot spot is trying keep young revelers from engaging in risky activity. It’s slogan? “Because good memories are the only things you want to take home.”

Panama City Beach, a popular spring break destination in Florida, welcomes 250,000 to 300,000 spring break travellers every year, according to Susan Estler, vice-president of marketing for the city’s Convention and Vistor’s Bureau. The Florida Department of Health in Bay County, where Panama City Beach is located, has initiatives that target the influx of partiers specifically.

One program has staff patrolling the beach in the morning, afternoon and at night, handing out condoms and educating partygoers on the dangers of excessive drinking and unprotected sex, said Julia Ruschmann, community projects director and public information officer for the branch.

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“The message is protect yourself. Don’t go home with anything you didn’t come with,” she said. She said an estimated 3,000 condoms were handed out last year in the six weeks of heightened spring break hedonism, which usually begins in March and ends in mid-April. The tag line for their outreach campaign this year? “It’s (about) making people aware of consequences, and people will make their own choices and decisions but we just want to make them think about it,” she said.

Last year, there were 28,331 cases of chlamydia and 2,633 cases of gonorrhea reported in Ontario. Those infections are the two most commonly reported STIs for the province’s 15 to 29 year olds, according to Public Health Ontario.

A study of American undergraduate students by researchers from Arizona State University concluded spring break creates the perfect conditions for sexual risk-taking. The 2002 study, published in the International Journal of STD &amp; AIDS, found that 64 per cent of males and half of the females got drunk on their last spring break vacation, nearly half of the male students and 41 per cent of the female students drank before having sex on vacation, and 74 per cent of males and 88 per cent of females never or rarely worried about getting a sexually transmitted infection or HIV from their sex partner.

But excessive alcohol consumption and unprotected sex are just two out of a host of concerns parents may have for their children while they are on vacation on their own.

Joanne Walsh, an instructional program leader with the Halton District School Board, said ensuring teens make responsible decisions is an ongoing process.

“When we talk about responsibility, we talk about what their value system is, what their beliefs are, what they know to be safe and how do they make sure they maintain that,” she said.

She said students are encouraged to think about keeping themselves, but also those around them, safe.

Mollie Roy, a Grade 12 student from Ottawa, is spending her March Break in Aruba with five of her friends for a week of tanning, jet skiing and snorkeling. She said her parents stressed the importance of the buddy system and making sure no one goes off alone, advice she said wouldn’t be hard to follow.

“We’re there to be with each other, so we’re going to be looking out for each other,” she said.

In the U.S., spring break revelers can also share results of STI tests through Qpid. me. After undergoing tests with a health care provider, users can request to have their information stored on qpid. me. They can then share the results with potential partners via text message or an online link. The site is not available to users in Canada.

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